Unemployment

THE EXPERTS WHO calculate these things say the Great Recession has been over for two years now. But you would have a hard time persuading the 25 million Americans who are unemployed or underemployed or too discouraged to even look for work. Or the countless others who fear they may join their ranks. Last week's report from the Labor Department confirmed what many Americans knew without needing a cable TV pundit to tell them: The mild improvement in job creation that we saw early this year is fading fast: First-time claims for unemployment benefits have been above 400,000 for the past 11 weeks, making for an official unemployment rate of 9.1 percent.

At 7:25 a.m. on Feb. 20, Dan Perry arrived at work at his Malvern industrial-parts company, as he always did. Five minutes later, Perry's weeping supervisor told him that the company had eliminated his job of four years. By 7:35, Perry was back in the parking lot, holding a box containing a few items from his desk. In the gut-punch moments of nascent unemployment, Perry looked up at the sky and asked, "What just happened to me?" The married 49-year-old executive with two teenage children was filled with a cold dread.

Chester County has the lowest unemployment rate in Pennsylvania, even though unemployment is up. Unemployment rose from 2.5 percent in October 1989 to 3.5 percent in October 1990, according to state Department of Labor and Industry figures. Unemployment rose in the other Pennsylvania counties in the Philadelphia area as well. The greatest increases were in Philadelphia and Bucks Counties, according to the Labor and Industry Department. But all five counties are faring well in a softening economy, according to a department analyst.

Cutting bloated factory payrolls to comply with economic reform has cost three million Soviets their jobs since 1986, and the number could reach 16 million by 2005, Pravda said yesterday. In some southern Soviet republics wracked by ethnic violence, about 25 percent of the work force has been unemployed for the last three years, the Communist Party daily said. The Pravda article gave no overall jobless rate for the country, which has a work force of about 130 million. Moscow has never revealed overall unemployment figures, declaring for decades that full employment was a virtue of communism.

Great news, jobless Pennsylvanians. I've found folks feeling more tortured than you by the state unemployment system: New Jersey residents who worked across the river in Pennsylvania. Once upon a time, Elefterios "Lefty" Mitsos was a respected Philadelphia police officer. Now, the 72-year-old Voorhees resident makes the case that no voice is easier for the Corbett administration to ignore than that of an unemployed person living out of state. Readers may recall a trio of columns this fall about how myopic Harrisburg belt-tightening led to the firing of 100 unemployment call center workers in an already overtaxed system.

We are young, urban and professional. We are literate, respectable, intelligent and charming. But foremost and above all, we know what it's like to be unemployed. Forced into dishonesty to survive, we have bounced checks to keep ourselves in Oxford shirts and Ann Taylor dresses. But we have no solid ground. Our parents continue to help. Our grandparents send an occasional check. Some of us have trust funds, but the majority do not. Our parents must wonder, "My child turned 18, then 21, got the right to vote and to drink, graduated from college, found work, then was out of work - and we're still providing the support.

January 4, 1991 | By Nancy Hass, Daily News Staff Writer The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

Pennsylvania is among 28 states the Department of Labor says might not have enough money in unemployment compensation funds to last the year. The department said yesterday that the spreading recession and layoffs could bankrupt the compensation system in the Commonwealth and elsewhere. Officials at the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry defended the fund's solvency. They say it should not be included among the troubled states. There is enough money, they say, to fund unemployment claims for the next 15 months.

Chester County's unemployment rate dropped slightly in June, another sign that the ailing economy is slowly recovering. June's job boom is especially encouraging because traditionally - even in more prosperous economies - unemployment usually rises in June, employment experts say. "It's kind of interesting. This doesn't usually happen," said Douglas Schmidt, director of the Chester County Job Center in Coatesville. That's because some seasonal workers, such as school cafeteria workers and bus drivers, collect unemployment benefits during the summer in June.

THE U.S. economy is now in a recession. October and November 2001 saw the largest increase in unemployment in over 20 years. The numbers of workers who have run out of their unemployment benefits is up 42 percent this year over the same period in 2000. Congress and the President are currently debating proposals to stimulate the economy. President Bush and Republicans in Congress are pushing a massive tax cut for corporations, with little help for the unemployed. Unemployed workers and supporters are calling for a stimulus package to aid the jobless.

The unemployment insurance system has enough reserves to last only five months in a severe recession and would have to borrow billions of dollars from the federal government to keep paying benefits, congressional watchdogs said yesterday. Because states had to borrow $11.8 billion to keep paying benefits during the 1981-82 recession, most have tightened eligibility requirements so much that only one of every four jobless workers in October 1987 received unemployment checks, the General Accounting Office said in a report.

With the nation's payrolls expanding by 295,000 jobs in all sectors, the U.S. unemployment rate hit a new postrecession low in February, reaching 5.5 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday. "We're getting jobs. There's definitely a difference," said John Dodds, director of the Philadelphia Unemployment Project, an advocacy group for low-wage workers. "Wages are still not up," Dodds noted. It is telling that nationwide - at Walmart, in last week's rallies at City Hall and in Harrisburg, at protests near fast-food restaurants, even in Gov. Wolf's first budget address - the focus has shifted from gaining jobs to building paychecks.

Reuben Amaro expects to file for unemployment by the end of next month - or in early March. That's when the Saladworks in the Gallery will close for renovations at the Center City mall. Amaro, 48, has twice been manager of the restaurant, for a total of seven years. "I'm looking at unemployment for now," said the man with almost the same name as the Phillies' general manager. (The baseball Amaro spells his first name Ruben.) Amaro found out when he returned to work Dec. 16 - three days after his wedding - that the restaurant was shutting down for as long as two years.

Unemployment rose in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware in August, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday. In New Jersey, as the first of Atlantic City's casinos shut their doors, 800 more people became jobless, compared to July, and the unemployment rate rose from 6.6 percent from 6.5 percent. New Jersey payrolls dropped by 900 jobs over the month, even as they expanded by 3,000 jobs since August, 2013. Pennsylvania's jobless ranks grew by 6,200 statewide as the employment rate rose to 5.8 percent in August from 5.7 percent in July.

Federal Reserve watcher Ray Stone notes that Friday's payroll data were "very solid," and set the stage for this summer's annual summit in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where central bank officials will debate the quality of the recovery in the labor market. What does that mean for the rest of us? Interest rates rise - or not - based on whether Federal Reserve governors think the economy is picking up. If yes - and jobs growth supports this - rates could go up by mid-2015. Federal Reserve chief Janet Yellen will take a microscope to these latest unemployment data as part of the debate.

The economy has generated enough private-sector jobs to replace all those lost during the recession, according to data released Friday by the U.S. Labor Department. That was the headline news in an otherwise solid, but unremarkable, report. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.7 percent, and payroll jobs were up by 192,000 in March. In March, private-sector, nongovernmental jobs edged just above 116 million. Such jobs numbered just below 116 million when the recession began in December 2007.

IT'S ONE thing for Hollywood to keep re-telling the story of Jesus or keep re-making Superman movies, but is it already time for another biopic on Steve Jobs ? The Ashton Kutcher version came out last year. TheWrap.com, however, reports that Christian Bale is David Fincher 's choice to play Jobs in a new untitled movie that Aaron Sorkin has written for Sony. Fincher recently met with Sony's Amy Pascal to discuss the possibility of directing the film, and told her, in no uncertain terms, that he'd helm the project only if Bale plays Jobs.

Unemployment in the Philadelphia metropolitan area rose in January to 7.1 percent, up from 6.4 percent in December, but down from 9 percent in January 2013, the U.S. Labor Department reported Friday. The figures are not adjusted for normal seasonal variations. Breaking it down, the unemployment rate in the Camden area, which consists of Camden, Gloucester, and Burlington Counties, was 7.9 percent, up from 7.0 percent in December, but down from 10 percent a year ago. Philadelphia and its four surrounding suburban counties also saw an increase, to 6.9 percent in January from 6.3 percent in December, but down from 8.9 percent in January 2013.

Maybe if it were illegal to discriminate against the long-term jobless, and doing so led to stiff fines, Cheryl Spaulding would be more impressed with the pledge to hire the long-term jobless made by business executives at the White House on Friday. "Every little bit helps," said Spaulding, cofounder of Joseph's People, a network of support groups for the unemployed based in Philadelphia suburban churches. "The truth is that there is no incentive to hire these people, other than ethical and moral," she said.

WE ELECT members of Congress to represent our interests and our views. Does that mean that Congress' view of Americans is, in fact, how we see ourselves? We hope not, because that view is unflattering, to say the least. Case in point: In December, more than a million people ran out of unemployment benefits, Congress having failed to pass an extension of federal jobless benefits that kick in after the typical 26-week state programs expire. Last week, the Senate advanced a bill that Republicans in the House say has little chance of passing.